Soft-drink Makers Test Plastic Can

March 16, 1986|By Selwyn Crawford of The Sentinel Staff

The plastic bottle has taken over a formidable and still-growing share of the U.S. market for soft-drink containers in less than a decade, rising from nothing in 1977 to more than 24 percent in 1984, when the market was last surveyed.

Now Coca-Cola Co. and a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based plastics manufacturer are experimenting with a new container that sounds like a contradiction in terms: the plastic can.

The 12-oz. container, known in the plastics industry as the PET -- for Polyethylene Terephthlate -- can, has been on sale in Columbus, Ga., about 100 miles from Coke's Atlanta headquarters, as part of a marketing test.

When the sample marketing, begun in October, ended this past week, officials from both Coke and the plastic can's manufacturer, Dorsey Corp., said the new can scored well but still poses problems.

Consumers in the Columbus area, at least, seemed to like the plastic can. Ron Coleman, a Coca-Cola spokesman, said the Columbus test revealed that consumers genuinely liked the look and feel of the plastic can.

Mark Preisinger, another Coke spokesman, said that the can actually proved too popular. ''We have seen extraordinary interest in the cans from outside the Columbus market, which has skewed the figures somewhat,'' he said. ''We have identified them as competitors, memorabilia collectors and the like.''

The biggest problem posed by the plastic can, however, is its reuse.

Neither plastic nor aluminum -- which is now used for more than nine- tenths of all soda and beer cans -- is biodegradable. But aluminum is easy to melt down and use again, while recycling plastic is much more complicated and expensive, according to experts in both industries. Some states, including Kentucky and New York, already are discussing legislation that would hinder the recycling of plastic cans because of environmental concerns.

''We'll look at the entire recycling aspect,'' Preisinger said. ''There are several aspects to be studied. Where do you take them to be recycled? Collection methods. Until . . . we make some decisions on its recyclability, we will not make a decision on the long-range use of the plastic can.''

Another drawback is that the plastic can is more expensive to produce than the aluminum can. According to Dorsey chairman John Pollock, that is because the prototype cans still use aluminum tops, the most expensive portion. He said his company is working on an all-plastic can that would cost about the same as one made of aluminum.

Even though Coke has pulled the plastic can from store shelves in Columbus, Pollock said that Dorsey still plans to open the country's first plastic-can factory for soft drinks in Atlanta in May. Coke, the nation's largest soda maker, has exclusive soft-drink rights to the PET can for the next five years, but Pollock said he is negotiating with beer and wine-cooler companies.

Pollock said the pilot plant would produce only about 180 million cans a year, a drop in the bucket considering that 65 billion aluminum soft-drink and beer cans were made in the United States last year.

The plant is actually a joint venture between Dorsey, which operates a plastic-bottle plant in Orlando, and two European companies that already make plastic cans in Sweden.

Pollock said he is excited about the possibilities of a plastic soda can but admitted that, for now, there is no way plastic can compete with aluminum. ''This technology is light-years away,'' Pollock said of the PET can. ''We're right at the same point that aluminum was 10 or 12 years ago. Today, there is no question -- we can't compete.'' He said Dorsey hopes to make plastic more competitive with aluminum by using the second-generation equipment in the planned Atlanta factory.

Pepisco Inc., the nation's No. 2 soft-drink maker, is not interested in a 12-ounce plastic can -- at least not now. A spokesman for the company said it tested one and found it lacking.

''We did look at the plastic can and did some research on it,'' spokesman Ken Ross said. ''We were not convinced then, nor are we convinced now, that our consumers want it. Just like everything else going on in the industry, though, we'll keep our eyes on it.''

Aluminum-can manufacturers are not impressed, either. Bob Shaffer, director of corporate information for Richmond, Va.-based Reynolds Metals Co., the nation's second-largest aluminum manufacturer, noted that aluminum has a stranglehold on the canned-soda market.

Eleven years ago, 38.3 percent of all beer and soft-drink cans were made of aluminum; the rest were made of steel. Now more than 94 percent of all such cans are made of aluminum, which is lighter, cheaper, easy to recycle and rust-proof, according to Frank Rathbun of The Aluminum Association in Washington, D.C.

Shaffer said,''We don't view the plastic can as a current threat to the aluminum can.

''It could become a threat in the future, but only after certain problems are worked out.''

Officials for Coke and Dorsey do not dispute Shaffer's argument. So why continue trying to make a plastic can? The plastic soda bottle provides a clue.

Since their introduction in 1978, 1- and 2-liter plastic bottles have chipped away steadily at sales of glass soda containers. In 1977, the year before plastic's debut, glass controlled 61.8 percent of the soft-drink market. (Cans represented the other 38.2 percent.) By 1984, plastic bottles represented 24.2 percent of all soda containers, while glass bottles' share had fallen to 35.2 percent.

With the use of cans on the rise -- from 34.5 percent of all containers in 1976 to 40.5 percent in 1984 -- transferring plastic to that shape seemed worth the try, Coke officials said.

''Since the mid-'70s, it has become apparent that the plastic container was very popular with consumers,'' Preisinger said.